*BSD News Article 19875


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From: D. Jay Newman <dn5@psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Xenon EISA/VLB system suitable for *bsd??
Date: 23 Aug 1993 14:59:24 GMT
Organization: Penn State
Lines: 34
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <25am0c$m8c@genesis.ait.psu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: magic.cac.psu.edu
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X-XXMessage-ID: <A89E531234013BCA@magic.cac.psu.edu>
X-XXDate: Mon, 23 Aug 93 10:57:22 GMT

Hi:

Please forgive me for a lack of knowledge about the latest PC developments,
but I am a Macintosh programmer in real life.

I have decided to learn more about the fundementals of unix, and decided
to try netbsd.  I am looking for a good system to run this on.  I need to
be able to both compile and use X-type-stuff (I really hope that shared
libraries get here real-soon-now).  I do have an ethernet available to
me (thin).

My price limit of $2,500 for the system, including an ethernet card.

Looking through Computer Shopper, I am impressed by the Xenon ads, but
don't know enough to be able to decide what can work.  I now think that
I would like a 486 DX2/50 system, with 8 or 16 meg RAM, a large
hard-disk (hopefully SCSI), and an accelerated graphics adapter.

1. Is Xenon a reputable company, or did I just fall for a glitzy ad?  :-)

2. Should net-bsd or free-bsd work on a system with both EISA and VL-bus?
   (The display adapter and the disk adapter will live on the VLB.)

3. Has anybody actually used a Xenon system?

4. Is there a a better system (cheaper, faster)?

I will summarize replies from the net, but I also follow this group.

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D. Jay Newman        !  We were all born to live with magic, the
dn5@psu.edu          !  entire human race.  We're never more than
dn5@psuvm.psu.edu    !  half-alive without it.  -- Fred Saberhagen